


Primae Noctis

by merelydovely



Series: Les Mis Women Week 2017 [6]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Era, Emotional Manipulation, F/F, F/M, Loss of Virginity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-25
Updated: 2017-07-25
Packaged: 2018-12-06 18:50:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11606790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merelydovely/pseuds/merelydovely
Summary: Tholomyès rules one half of the Double Quartette, Favourite rules the other. When Favourite learns her newest subject is still a virgin, she takes an unusual interest.





	Primae Noctis

**Author's Note:**

> Fill for the [CANON ERA prompt](http://probably-pride-related.tumblr.com/post/162287312525/les-mis-wlwwomens-week-psa) of [Les Mis Women/WLW Week](https://persephonah.tumblr.com/post/162241826110/is-your-gay-ass-starved-of-the-much-needed-wlw) 2017.

"The young one is quiet to-day," remarked Dahlia. She had spoken in an undertone to Zéphine, as she often did, but Favourite was quite near, and overheard.

"She is always quiet," said Favourite. "She speaks, but one has to strain to hear her; she has the voice of a church-mouse, taking care to squeak too soft for the church-cat. Unless Tholomyès is making her laugh, and then she is quite the cacophony of noises. But you are right, to-day there are strings attached to her, that trail off into the ether, and where they end I cannot fathom. She is half elsewhere. We must venture into her cloister, and play upon her strings as one would a harp's, and have out what is the matter with her."

"Me, I have never played a harp," said Zéphine, who had not quite caught the thrust of the conversation.

"Do not trouble yourself," said Favourite, "I will do it." And taking up her skirts, she strode with purpose over the hard-packed sand of the public gardens, toward Fantine. 

The young lady in question was stood at a slight remove from her companions, entranced by a butterfly which had landed on the beribboned brim of her straw hat as she held it in her hand.

Favourite, cocking her head to one side, regarded this ingénue closely. She was murmuring to the butterfly: "Oh, how lovely you are! That is not a flower, not a true flower, and you must fly off in search of your nectars, but I would not disturb you for the world! Do stay!"

And Favourite thought to herself: "She is as bright and open as a child." 

It was not a happy thought in the slightest, and Favourite was not the sentimental sort. But still she was loath to disturb the scene, and she waited to break the silence until the butterfly had flown off.

"Fantine?"

The sound of her name startled a jump out of the younger woman, and Favourite laughed. "Love, you let us walk on without you; I was half afraid you had flown away like your wingèd friend."

"Oh, I would not have left you," said Fantine, a little shyly. 

Fantine was the most recent addition to their quartet, not at all sure yet of her place. Tholomyès had noticed her one morning weaving her way through the columns of the Panthéon, and Favourite had noticed him noticing. Tholomyès had then begun to alter the course of his own strolls, and by extension the course of Favourite's strolls with Blachevelle, in the hopes of again crossing paths with this latest distraction, and Favourite had quickly grown impatient with such meanderings. When next she had chanced upon Fantine, buying stockings in the market of the Latin Quarter, Favourite had invited the slip of a thing to join their group in the square the next day. And Fantine had proved to be good girl, sincere and eager to please; the purity of heart that made her so very unlike Tholomyès was the selfsame trait that made her so susceptible to his influence.

None of that was of consequence to Favourite. Fantine was to her a fine companion, but a companion is merely a person with whom one keeps company; there was no greater loyalty there, nor any of the closer confidence Dahlia enjoyed with Zéphine. Thus far in their brief acquaintance, Fantine had progressed from an irritation to a point of intrigue; she had yet to become an intimate. 

"I am glad to hear it," said Favourite, "for we would have been obliged to mourn you, had you gone, and I would much rather be joyful and gay, than wallow in melancholy. But there I am afraid we differ, for you have been very melancholy to-day, all swathed in cobweb like an old spinster. Come out into the light again, and be joyous as you were last we saw you, or else draw your sorrow out, that we might bark at it and frighten it off." 

She was still in the vein of thinking of Fantine as a little church-mouse, beleaguered by a mouser. Then Fantine bit her lip, drawing her dainty hands up under her chin, and she was so like a mouse that Favourite very nearly laughed in her face.

But Fantine's countenance was serious, her eyes darting to and fro like she was about to impart a great secret, and Favourite schooled herself into composure. 

When Fantine spoke, her words came haltingly. "I would not know how to speak of it."

Favourite sensed victory, and said only: "Try."

Fantine's story came out in fits and starts. Tholomyès had got her alone, one day previous. This itself was no great divergence from the norm – now that Tholomyès' group of friends was composed entirely of couples, each pair would absent themselves from the larger group on occasion – but, Favourite was given to understand, something had been different yesterday. Tholomyès and Fantine had been embracing, kissing passionately in the manner to which Fantine had become accustomed, and Tholomyès had – what? He had touched Fantine somewhere. Had he pawed at her bosom, or had he pressed at the joining of her legs? Fantine's recounting of the event was so muddled that Favourite could not be sure. 

"Was he, then, quite rough with you?" inquired Favourite. She could not make out why else Fantine might choose to relate such paltry details with such a weighty air. 

Fantine shook her head with such vehemence that a few of her golden tresses were flung from their pins.

"His hands were – they were –" Fantine stopped. "It did not hurt. And in any case, I would not deny him any thing he asked; I love him, and he loves me. It is only that I do not know what I am meant to do, and it frightens me."

It was only then that Favourite realized that Fantine was not just as bright and open as a child, but as innocent, as well. It had not even occurred to Favourite that Fantine might be a virgin, as Favourite had been much younger than Fantine was now when first she tumbled into the hay, skirts around her waist, with some fresh-faced boy whose name she had not a hope of remembering. For Fantine to be a woman grown, and never have had a man between her legs? Well. Perhaps, Favourite conceded, Fantine came by that intolerable aura of purity honestly.

Favourite was, all of a sudden, cross. There was something deeply vexing to her about the thought of Tholomyès – Tholomyès who loved no one but himself, Tholomyès who had done nothing with his nearly thirty years of life but impress his hangers-on with the profligate fashion in which he contrived to spend four thousand francs a year –  _Tholomyès_ getting to sink his unworthy prick into the prettiest virgin Favourite had ever seen. There was something likewise infuriating about the certainty that Fantine would be foolish enough to let him. How dare anyone of her station, their  _shared_ station, be so arrogant as to believe that a man like Tholomyès could love a mere grisette? 

Fantine would offer up her chastity and Tholomyès would toss her aside like all the others, and Fantine would wail that she had given him everything, that she had given herself to him utterly, and still she would glow with that insufferable inner light.

It was hard to say how the thought came to Favourite, exactly, but if pressed she may have credited as her inspiration the repulsive image of Tholomyès, drunk as he often was, writhing clumsily on top of Fantine, thinking no more of squandering her gift than he thought of squandering his inheritance.

Favourite's thought was this: Tholomyès would never receive Fantine's chastity, because Favourite was going to take it herself. Tholomyès could think himself the leader of their little double quartette, but Favourite had her hand on more strings than anyone would credit, and it pleased her, at times, to pluck them, simply to prove she could.

"What are you whispering about, you two?" called Dahlia.

"It is only the price of Fantine's apartments, which may soon be raised," cried Favourite. "She has been fretting over her coin-purse." But to Fantine she said, "Let me visit you tonight, and we will make quick work of this; you need not be afraid." 

Fantine's eyes were huge and trusting; she clasped Favourite's hand in hers, and promised to be ready.

**Author's Note:**

> Meant to post this in a single chapter, but The Fairer Sex took more out of me than expected, writing in this style is very unnatural, and I'm on a family vacation where it's not cool to spend all my time in my room writing explicit fanfic. I'll finish up with chapter two next week!
> 
> Also posted [here](https://les-amis-de-nsfw.tumblr.com/post/163534989717/canon-era) on my NSFW Les Mis sideblog, [@les-amis-de-nsfw](https://les-amis-de-nsfw.tumblr.com/).


End file.
